


Fool's Holiday

by msmaj



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22055053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmaj/pseuds/msmaj
Summary: Jughead Jones isn't dumb by any means. Except when it comes to women...or one woman in particular. Oh, and siblings. And holidays. Maybe he is just a fool after all.
Relationships: Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 20
Kudos: 92
Collections: 6th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees, Bughead Secret Santa, Home for the HoliDale





	Fool's Holiday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LanaDelJones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LanaDelJones/gifts).



> For my Bughead Secret Santa, the lovely lanadeljones! I hope you enjoy it.

In the three Christmases he’s spent in this apartment, Jughead’s been remiss to hang more than a stocking. It’s not as though he hates the holiday but decorating for himself seemed more a chore than a treat. Of course, he would completely forgo even the stocking if it hadn’t come from his neighbor, Betty. Two years ago she’d moved in and nothing in his life has been the same ever since.

Jughead has always felt very lucky to have found a nice two-bedroom townhouse while he was still in college and had decided against giving it up after he graduated. It was close enough to commute, the rent was reasonable, and his neighbor, well, having a raging crush on his neighbor had compelled him to resign his lease without much forethought.

It started simply enough, two like-minded albeit very different people sharing their time and experiences in exchange for companionship and food. (There was always, always something good to eat at Betty Cooper’s.) But unlike most every other experience in Jughead Jones’ short life, this simply got better with time. The more they spent together, the more he craved her presence. 

However, very much in the fashion of Jughead, he doesn’t press the issue, he's happy to bask in the idea that maybe someday she could possibly feel what he does. Sometimes he thinks it could be. Real that is. When she invites herself over to watch cheesy horror movies on Halloween but ends up shrieking, tucked against his side. Or now that Christmas is knocking on the door, he’ll grab some cheap bourbon and they’ll laugh until they cry while Hallmark forces another sappy love story set against a snowy-white backdrop down the throats of the masses.

He knows she actually enjoys the movies, the cliched sappy romances with their happily ever afters, especially since they rarely finish them sober. She’s almost always misty-eyed, smiling from ear to ear, the kind of radiant glowing he’d only ever seen in prose and never in real life. 

The last movie they watched the previous Christmas ended with a kiss on the cheek and the promise of a very happy New Year. Of course, then life happened and neither of those things came up again. He’s waited the entire year for another chance, to recapture or perhaps rekindle...he just knows he wants that moment, that night again. And it is finally here.

On December seventh, when he and Betty were a quarter of a bottle into some movie starring a washed-up nineties sit-com actress and a man old enough to be her father, his phone rings.

“Are you not going to answer that?” Betty questions from her end of the couch.

Soon, she’ll scoot down so her feet are in his lap, and cover the both of them with the fluffy green blanket she put on the couch for Christmas. At that point he’ll try, desperately, not to touch her but she’ll flex her toes or make a distressed sound and somehow—as if by magic—his hands will wrap around her blanketed feet and try to rub the aches away. They’ve danced this dance before. At least once a week from mid-October through right before Christmas. Betty usually leaves the twenty-third to spend the holiday with her family but comes back for New Year's Eve, which they’ve rung in together since she’s been in his life.

“Nah, if it’s that important they’ll leave a message,” he throws his now silent phone on the coffee table before he reclines back, hoping she’ll take it for the invitation that it is. After a few seconds he notices her starting to inch her way toward him. She stops for the bottle, takes a swig and shakes off the burn. He’s trying not to make it obvious he’s watching her but he’s certain the smile tugging at his lips gives him away. 

“You’re ringing again,” she points at his glowing phone, pulling her legs up under her where she stopped in the middle of the couch. 

Only slightly dejected, he sighs, leaning forward to see the RESTRICTED that flashed before had changed into numbers, with a very important city’s name appearing underneath. “Shit. I’ll be right back,” Jughead snatches the phone from the table, grumbling “hello” into the receiver as he makes his way to Betty’s small half-bath.

“Forsythe Jones?”

He feels the pinch behind his eyes and subconsciously tries to smooth it by rubbing his fingers across his brow. “This is he.”

“Mr. Jones, this is Cynthia Montgomery with Lucas County Social Services...” Jughead’s knees buckle, the toilet luckily catches him. “Your sister is currently in my care.”

“Is she okay?” he manages to get out.

Ms. Montgomery pauses, then sighs. “JB is fine. It was brought to our attention by one of her teachers that she may be lacking in parental care and after a very brief investigation, we were able to prove as much. She was remanded to my custody as we tried to find your mother, but so far, we’ve found nothing.”

Jughead scoffs. “Not surprising. I can’t imagine this is the first time Gladys left Jellybean with my grandparents and absconded to God knows where.”

“Actually, Mr. Jones,” the voice on the other end softens. “Your mother and sister left your grandparents home after an altercation some months ago.”

“What?! Jelly never told me that, she told me that…” What had she told him? When was the last time they spoke? He could feel the already close walls pressing in, sweat beading on his brow as the voice droned on.

“Would it really come as such a surprise if she told you a half-truth? She’s quite adept I must say. In the short time I’ve known her—”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Montgomery,” he interrupts in order to keep himself on track. “Is there something I needed to be privy to here? I assume you’ve contacted my grandparents and Jel-JB will be going back with them?”

“Oh, well, not exactly.”

Jughead listens, though he misses much of the conversation. She’s just filling the void with superfluous words until a few strike him like hammer blows. 

“We just need to you come to get her or make the proper travel arrangements, and we can deal with the paperwork and finite details after the holidays. Just call us as soon as you have it sorted. Talk to you soon, Mr. Jones.”

Jughead swallows heavily as he drops the phone from his ear. The knock on the door is faint, the questioning “Juggie” that accompanies it is equally quiet with the echo of his heartbeat in his ears. 

He stands and opens the door, Betty’s concern is etched on her every feature, it’s in her eyes as they softly sweep his form, in her stance as she seems torn on touching him to reassure herself but manages to keep her distance before he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and wraps himself around her, letting everything out as her arms come to brace him around the middle. 

Betty manages, somehow, to get him home after he finishes the bottle of Wild Turkey they’d been working on. He doesn’t see her again until he’s picked Jellybean up from the airport two days later

“Betts, hey,” she jumps, startled by his voice as she strings lights around her kitchen window. 

“Jughead, hi, oh and you must be Jellybean!” Betty drops the lights in a heap at her feet and rushes over to meet the young girl.

“Please, it’s JB,” the fair-haired girl replies. They look alike, he thinks, minus the opposite hair colors. They are siblings after all. Even if they’re thirteen years apart and their primary form of communication is meme-sharing and he hasn’t spent any significant time with her since she was four; she’ll now be living with him, indefinitely. 

“Sorry, JB, I’m Betty. Your brother’s neighbor,” she extends a hand and though, politely smiling, he can feel JB sizing her up. 

“Oh, _you’re_ Betty! It’s so nice to meet you!” JB takes it, shaking with enthusiasm. “Jughead’s told me so much about you.”

Betty steps back after dropping JBs hand, turns and cocks her head to face him. “He has, has he? Well, I hope I’m not as boring in real life as I’m sure he’s made me seem.”

“Hah! The last thing Jughead sounds is bored when he’s talking about _you,_ ” Jughead can feel the flush rising up his neck, the layers of clothing that have served him so well for so long betray him.

Clearing his throat to try to break the concentration Betty is clearing placing on that statement, Jughead grabs JBs luggage and bumps his arm into hers. “Betty’s busy kid, we should probably let her get back to her lights before we all freeze out here.”

“Mock all you want, Jones, I like my lights. But I will let you get back to getting settled. It was nice to meet you, JB. Hopefully, we’ll see each other some more. Jug, I guess raincheck on tonight’s viewing?”

_Shit._ “Oh, yeah, um that’s probably not a bad idea.”

“Okay,” Betty nods, clenching her gloved hands. “Just get ahold of me, I guess.”

She doesn’t give him a chance to respond, simply turns her back to them and takes off toward the half-adorned window. He stares at her retreating form for a beat longer then turns to his sister who can’t help but hide the amusement coloring her features. 

“What?” JB questions with a wry, half-smile. 

“Let’s just get in the house before you do something to embarrass me further.”

“Oh please. The two of you are so oblivious that even if you wrote out what was behind those ridiculous heart-eyes, in those bright twinkle lights, neither of you would get the message,” she mumbles following her brother into his apartment. 

The first couple of days are awkward. Two people trying to learn another’s routine, not get in each other’s way and find balance is not an easy feat. Especially since the school district has decided to wait until after winter break to allow her to enroll. It makes sense with the new semester’s start, but with his work schedule, it’s not ideal.

While the circumstances that brought JB so quickly and fully back into his life weren’t ideal, he can’t say he’s angry about it. They’ve spent all their time together re-learning, Jughead filling in some big blanks their mother never bothered with and JB keeping him apprised of their mother’s activities. By the end, he’s surprised it’s taken this long for social services to reach out to him. 

He is, as usual, fortunate to have Betty Cooper as a neighbor. Whatever he can’t get out of workwise, Betty is there, picking up the slack, treating JB as if she were family herself. They’ve made cookies (so many that Jughead actually requests she stop bringing them) and presents and that night Betty even sends home a stocking for JB. 

“She said, it’s so my first Christmas away is spent with the Grinch.” 

Jughead’s eyes narrow at his younger sister. “She said what?”

“Apparently it’s a well-known fact that Jughead Jones is a bit of a Grinch,” she shrugs and walks to the stairs. “I mean, is she wrong? It’s not exactly exuding holiday cheer in here big brother.”

“Hey!” he yells offended. “I am not a Grinch. I just never had a reason to decorate before now. I’ve spent the last couple of December’s at Casa Cooper so don’t think I haven’t picked up a thing or two about how to make this place a winter wonderland!”

JB rolls her eyes. “Oh, okay. We’ll believe it when we see it.”

“We?”

“Betty and I. She doesn’t think you have a singular, jolly cell in your body. Can’t say I disagree. Now I’ve got the B-Side of ‘Dark Side’ to sync up with ‘The Wizard of Oz’, later bro!”

Jughead is near seething by the time she reaches the top. “Jolly? I’ll show you jolly.” He shouts that he has to run to the store and drives off into the cold, winter’s night.

When he returns, the bags containing faux-Christmas cheer line the hallway. Cracking his knuckles, he sets his sights out front, hoping to match the precision of which Betty has hung her lights. An hour into his endeavor he’s not even close. The icicle lights hang haphazardly across the entryway, the wreath crooked on his door and the lights he intends for his own front-facing window lay tangled at his feet.

Another missed nail and yelled curse cause his neighbor’s front door to abruptly open. “Jug? What’s going on, why are you on a ladder?” 

Betty steps out, narrowly missing the cluster of glowing lights on the ground, and wraps her arms around her. “Jug are you...are you decorating?”

“Well apparently, compared to yours, my house doesn’t scream Christmas.” From the corner of his eye, he sees a smile appear on her face, soft and warm amidst the lights she expertly hung.

“No, no it doesn’t. If you want some help—” 

“No. I got it,” he tries to ignore the hurt he sees flash in her eyes as she nods and abruptly turns her back. “It’s just that I kind of want to do something for Jelly...that’s all me. If you help, she’ll know because everything will look perfect,” she winces but turns back around. 

She’s smiling because she’s Betty, but he knows he’s said something that struck a nerve. “I get it. I do, but, if you’re going to be trying your hand at decorating then you should be forewarned.”

This stops his misguided hammering as he turns to face her, eyebrow raised in confusion (and perhaps just a little fear.) “What about?”

“Oh, this?” she gesticulates to the decorations on her side then to the empty lawn. “I try to keep my true spirit under wraps, Jones, as not to overload your delicate sensibilities, but, since you’ve decided to undertake decorating on your own...I’m gonna have to go full Griswold.”

Jughead could feel his eyes bulging. “Excuse me? Did you just imply that there’s possibly more you could do inside there? Betts, it already looks like ‘Buddy the Elf’ visited, it cannot get more Christmas-y.”

“Huh,” she was back in her doorway. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

He caught her wink before the door closed between them. What the hell just happened?

Jughead finds out the next night when a strange whirring catches his attention. Checking the peephole on his front door he sees, well, not at all what he expects.

Slowly, he pulls the door back to reveal a veritable inflatable menagerie. Polar bears festooned in festive attire, penguins in Santa hats, what he _thinks_ might be a moose.

“Jesus, Jug, what did you do?” JB is suddenly standing beside him, her eyes fixed on the display before them. 

“Me? I hung some lights! This is insane!” he knocks on Betty’s door. He would swear he hears laughter behind the wrapping paper ensconced door but it never opens. Softly, he laughs to himself. “Alright, Cooper, it’s on. If it’s war you want…” he sighs when he’s met with silence and runs a resigned hand through his messy hair. Turning back to JB, who looks all of her twelve years in the shadow of the newly minted light show, he tells her to grab their coats and his keys. 

“Betty said she was going full Griswold; what she doesn’t realize is that by doing so, she just woke the beast. Buckle up kid, it’s about to get a whole lot tackier.”

Tacky might just be an understatement for what transpired over the next few days. Mis-matched candy cane lights lined the sidewalk leading to an eclectic display of laser lights, projecting a tandem kaleidoscope of color on the facade of his apartment. He found tinsel encrusted, light up gift boxes and put them under the window, which is also now covered in garish sticky snowmen and reindeer. 

He even has a few things in reserve, just in case Betty breaks out the big guns and really tries to put him in his place. JB is loving every second of it too. As cool as she claims to be, and truly is, she’s still a kid at Christmas who was just dealt a very shitty hand. The least he can do is try to make this whole experience memorable. In a good way for once. 

Just then she texts him a picture of her and Betty outside the apartment, a large, nondescript bag between them, and genuinely mischievous smirks on both their faces.

“Shit,” he mutters, though not as under his breath as he intends. Before long he’s got company at his desk, and try as he might, he simply cannot escape.

The Friday before Christmas finds the Jones siblings loaded down with good food, practically waddling back up the walk to their apartment. It’s uncomfortably bright, what with Betty’s additional herd of animatronic reindeer and his motorcycle-riding Santa blow-up, he nearly has to shield his eyes. 

“Just ask her, Jug. She’s not gonna say no.”

He sighs, squinting and trudges on. “I know she’s not, but I just...I don’t think I can. It’s no big deal.”

“What’s no big deal?”

“Betty!” JB pushes by her brother to stand between him and Betty. “Can I hang out at your place tomorrow night?”

  
Betty looks slightly taken aback but shakes it off. “Sure, JB. What time?” She looks to Jughead, a shy smile appearing at the corner of her mouth, “maybe we can finally finish that movie?” 

“Oh, no, not him. He’s got a date! Which he was going to cancel but I knew you wouldn’t mind another girls night, right?”

He’s pretty sure he can feel each of those words as they land like blows to his stomach. “A date,” Betty says so softly he could hardly hear her above the lawn inflatables. “What time?” Her tone feels colder, even just two words.

“Seven,” the word pushes through his lips tremulously, as if willing her to look at him. When she does he almost wishes she hadn’t. Something lingers between them, it’s weighted and heavy and he can feel himself being pulled under, but before he gets carried away Betty nods and repeats the time, walking into the night without another glance.

“This is getting sooooo good.” Jellybean is smiling from his doorway, exaggeratedly clasping her hands in front of her.

When he swallows it’s as if his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. Air is thick and syrupy as it fills his lungs, the lead balloon having sunk completely through his stomach and forcing some cloying amalgamation of guilt and shame through his nose. The key turns in the lock as the ragged breath breaks free. “No, JB, there’s no good that can come from this.”

“You are so melodramatic, big brother. Take a couple of deep breaths and come inside. Everything will work itself out.”

Jughead would have liked to believe that was true, but the next night JB ran over to Betty’s before he’d been ready to go, leaving him, in his newly decorated house, all alone. It was the first time he’d felt lonely, albeit alone since JB arrived. The quiet solitude he’d grown accustomed to was suffocating. With one last look in the mirror, lit but undecorated tree glowing behind him, he groans. 

The plan had been to ask Betty over and have her help them put the ornaments on. Maybe ask her to stay when it was done, finish what they never got to. It was the longest they’d gone without spending any significant time together, just a few random texts and sentences exchanged when JB was coming or going. Now, he’s going on a date—one he’d distractedly agreed to—when the only place he wants to be is mere feet away.

Seven twenty-five finds him sat across from Ethel Muggs, bored, and three beers into a mediocre appetizer plate. It’s not like he doesn’t like Ethel, he does, as a friend...or colleague, she’s smart, nice, pretty, but he’s racing for his phone at every notification. JB keeps sending pictures of the food Betty made and the gingerbread houses they were making and a particularly focused Betty with a smidgen of icing on her nose that he just finds adorable.

“Any reason you’re staring so wistfully at your phone every time it dings?” Ethel asks from behind her glass of house red. 

He rolls the bottleneck between his long fingers before taking a swig. “Just pics from my sister. She seems to be having a good night.”

Ethel nods, sips her wine and sets the glass back on the table. It’s enough to convince her that he wants to be there as he forces a smile and motions for another bottle. By the time their dinner’s come and eaten, he’s far deeper into the drinks than he intended to be. Ethel tries and fails, to get him to come with her. He simply thanks her for her time and heads right back to the bar. Another hour, a few candid shots of his favorite blonde and a couple of rounds of harder libations later, he texts JB that he’s headed home (via an Uber) and to come home when she’s ready.

It’s minutes that he’s back when he hears the front door. JB yells she’s tired into the void and stomps her way to her room. Jughead sighs mid teeth brushing when his phone dings. 

_‘Hope you had a nice date’_

It’s simple and concise and not meant to be condescending at all but it trips Jughead Jones’ trigger like nothing else has for a very long time.

Mouth still foamy, he storms back out the door and finds himself in front of hers. He doesn’t remember knocking but he must because suddenly Betty is standing before him in a cream-colored cable knit sweater, messy top-knot, and her reading glasses.

“Jug, are you okay?”

“My date was fine, thank you!”

Betty shakes her head and smiles. “That’s good, I’m glad. You had to come over here and tell me that, though?”

“No,” he points emphatically. “I came over here to tell you that I have watched you go on dates with lots of different guys…’

“Excuse me?” She steps out of her apartment into the cold night. “What does my dating history have to do with this?”

“I’m simply stating the facts here,” Jughead, in all his drunken glory, is trying to prove a point that does not seem to exist. “There was Chad, Eric, Adam, I know I’m missing an asshole or two but I think you get the gist.”

Betty looks as though she’s been slapped as she reaches behind her for the door. “I didn’t realize you kept such a thorough tally of my failed relationships. Oh, and you definitely missed one asshole who I guess now gets added to that list. I really did hope you had a good time tonight but now, I hope it was shit. And I hope your morning is, too. By the sound...and the smell of you, I imagine it will be. Goodnight, Jughead, and goodbye.” 

She’s inside, the door slamming in his face before he can respond. He swears there were tears in her eyes, he knows his own are full of them, can feel them sliding down his cheeks as he’s left in sudden, silent darkness. Jughead whirls around and sees the wonderland deflate before his eyes, taking with it all the hopes he had for the new year. Leave it to him to fuck up two things in one night; no one destroys their own life quite like a Jones. 

“Dude. DUDE! Jughead! Wake up!!!” 

Jughead startles awake, sloshing a bit of the coffee JB was holding in front of him onto him. Apparently, he’d fallen asleep on the couch, which, after what he’s done he totally deserves the crick in his neck awaiting him. 

“JB what time is it?” He takes the coffee from his sister and inhales its heavenly aroma. 

“Almost noon. What the hell happened last night?”

Jughead can feel the dull throb behind his eyes, the sandpaper scratchiness of his throat, the sheer discomfort of having slept on the raggedy sofa—in his clothes no less—, but most pressing is the gnawing ache that seems to have taken root in his chest. 

He doesn’t respond more than a groan then sinks against the cushions. The coffee is still steaming as he brings the mug, his favorite one, (the one with his name written in beautiful, silvery script amidst the stars) the one Betty gave him last Christmas, to his lips. The ache flares inside as the coffee attempts to burn the hangover away.

“Jug,” JB perches herself on the coffee table in front of him, elbows on knees, pigtail braids and too much familiarity in her young gaze. “You can talk to me.”

His head lolls back, neck stretching before he starts talking. “I told you I would fuck everything up.”

“You’re a Jones, self-fulfilling prophecy is our motto, our creed! Now, I don’t really need details...you weren’t exactly quiet and my window is _right_ there…”

As much as he would love for the couch to swallow him whole at this revelation, he forces himself upright instead. “Great.”

“To be fair, the whole complex probably heard.”

He snaps his head toward his sister, locks of matted brown tumble across his brow. “Not helping, Jelly,” he takes another swig of his coffee and sets the cup next to his sister. “How do I fix this?”

“You can start by apologizing,” Jellybean says matter-of-factly. Jughead drops his head to his hands but manages a nod with his face buried in them. “Then you invite her over for Christmas Eve.”

“She won’t be here, fuck, she probably already left!” His head snaps back up, still cradled by his hands and he tries to ward off the building tension in his jaw.

JB cocks her head, there’s sympathy in her eyes, maybe some disappointment too, but she smiles. “I know for a fact that she has not. And is not. Betty told me last week she wasn’t going back home; said she had something she wanted to see through before the New Year.” She shrugs as she stands from the table. “Oh, but maybe clean yourself up before you do any of that, you look like shit.” (He doesn’t necessarily like it when his little sister swears, but, when she’s right, she’s right.)

A little over an hour later, freshly showered and back from retrieving his car, he knocks on Betty’s door. As it opens his heart starts doing weird flutters, it all but stops when he can only see a sliver of her face, the chain allowing mere inches to speak through.

“What?” 

What indeed? How does he tell her everything that’s been going through his head since LAST Christmas? That, even though she’s been right next door he’s never felt further from her? That, he’s waited an entire year only to have the fates drop his little sister in the mix and while maybe it isn’t _fair_ it’s completely _right_? He says none of those things, sighs instead and goes with “I am so sorry, Betty. How I acted—what I said, it was completely out of line. I was drunk, and I know, that’s not an excuse, but I had had a lot going through my mind all night and I took it out on you. You did not, and do not ever, deserve that. I’ll probably be apologizing for it for the rest of my life…”

“Thank you,” her voice doesn’t sound as harsh, but it’s still off. “Was that all?”

He swallows. “JB tells me you’re not going home for Christmas…”

“Oh, um, no, I’m not.”

“Were you not going to tell me that?”

Her head swings, he can almost make out the swish of her ponytail behind the door. “Excuse me?”

“No, God, I really suck at this! I’m sorry, again, it’s just...JB and I would really love if you came and spent Christmas Eve with us.”

The eye he can see appraises him, he can feel it as the puffy orb looks him up and down. “Jug, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Just think about it, please? If there’s a chance that you could ever forgive me...just come.”

Betty nods. “I’ll think about it. Goodbye, Jug.” The door clicks shut and the hammering in his heart starts again. 

Betty hasn’t relit her display since she yanked the plug on Saturday. Jughead faithfully lights up, while the tree still sits unadorned as he hopes very shortly he and his sister get some much-needed assistance. It’s nearly six, the sun’s gone from the sky leaving only the twinkling of the neighborhood lights, which seemed to double after he and Betty started their friendly competition. 

He wonders if the Jughead from that night could have predicted where they’d end up when all he’d wanted was her head on his shoulder, their fingers laced together, a sweet kiss shared as the credits rolled. His mug, filled again with coffee, mocks him. It’s everything he could ever want and, quite literally from where he was sitting, just out of reach.

“She’s not coming is she?” JB asks walking into the room, arms crossed over her chest. 

Jughead shrugs. “I don’t know, kid. I don’t think so.”

“Jesus, Jug! How could you even fuck this up—”

“Hey!”

“No,” she wags a finger in his direction. “You don’t get to language lecture me right now. I have been pushed and pulled and tossed around like a fucking object for the last three years so, you’re just going to sit there for a minute. Got it?”

He nods.

“Good. Now, where was I...oh yeah, how? HOOOOWWWW? Jug, Betty was a _sure_ thing. For some reason, she seemed to be equally into you, and yet you fly off the handle—at her—for having dated in the past when you were the one going on a date.”

“If you’ll recall, I didn’t want to go on the date, I tried to cancel said date and you were the one who insisted I go!”

“Yeah, because I thought it would force both of your stupid hands! Boy did that backfire. It forced stupid hands all right, but only yours, digging your own grave.”

“Betty and I are adults, we don’t need your meddling. We are perfectly capable of…” he pauses, not sure if the words he wants to use are even true anymore. “We were capable of doing these things on our own.”

JB laughs, loudly. “Are you serious? How long have you been pining over that girl?? You even decorated your place at the suggestion she thought you wouldn’t! That girl is everything to you, and you never once let her know that.” 

“What?”

JB continues as if she hasn’t heard him. “When you started naming the guys she dated did it ever occur to you that not one of them was from this last year? That she hasn’t gone on a single date since last…” 

“Okay! So we were both idiots but, JB, I’m so scared that I lost her.” And he was, and not even in just the romantic sense, but as a friend. “I know you’re young but, sometimes you just meet someone and everything in the world seems, I don’t even know. It sounds too cliched to say ‘right’ and I don’t even know if that’s the word I want.”

JB sits beside him on the couch. “Tell me what you do know, big brother.”

He stretches for his mug and holds it almost reverently between his palms. “I know she doesn’t like coffee but she keeps my favorite kind on hand. I know when she’s faked scared versus real scared, you can’t watch that many horror movies with a person and not pick up some tells. I know it takes a good week for her to decompress after a trip to her parents, even though she’s a successful adult they still make her feel like an incompetent child and it gets in her head. I know her favorite color is not pink, it’s the blue of the sky right before the moon claims it for night. She loves sugary cereal and cheap liquor and people watching,” he pauses to breathe in, the next part is a bit heavier and he needs the air to get through it. “She makes me feel seen like I’m a person worth investing time and energy in. She’s selfless in the way that most people truly aren’t, she’d do anything for the people she loves. And somehow I think we made out way onto that list. I’ll never forgive myself for jeopardizing that because what I know most intrinsically is, that the best part of my day is when I see her, even if it’s just a second on the sidewalk. That smile has gotten me through some dark days. What do I do if I can’t walk this back?” he looks at the half-empty cup and sighs. 

“Keep saying stuff like that and you won’t have wait long to find out.”

Jug’s head snaps up. “Betty? What...why...how long have you been standing there?” He manages to stammer. 

“Long enough, Jones,” she steps out of the hallway and into the living room with unshed tears clinging to her lashes. The harsh brightness of the LED laden Christmas tree does nothing to diminish how beautiful she looks standing before him. Gift bags on one arm, she uses the other to point to the tree. “Looks pretty naked. I think that makes me winner of our impromptu decorating challenge.”

He can’t stop staring, she’s really standing here and talking to him. “Um, I left it for you, for us…” he nods to himself and tries to shake off the feeling of all his nerve endings firing at once. “It had been my intention to invite you over tonight to help us decorate the tree. Unfortunately, for all of us, I am an idiot.”

“Right you are!” Jellybean stands and walks to Betty, wrapping her in a tight embrace before taking the bags and setting them by the tree. Jughead slides out from behind the coffee table and gently grabs Betty by the elbow, leading her back to the hallway.

“Betts, you don’t have—” Her finger is soft but firm, pressed against his lips.

“We still have a lot to talk about, Jug, but it’s Christmas Eve and there’s nowhere else I wanted to be more than with you, and Jelly.”

Jughead can feel tears welling in his own eyes again. He wants to kiss her, needs to kiss her, but her finger holds him in place. 

“Let’s take this next week, get back to talking, and we’ll revisit this on New Year’s Eve, okay?”

He nods and the finger drops from his lips. The smile she flashes him before turning back into the living room should sustain him through then. Especially coupled with the laughter that’s erupted. He sees JB’s gotten all the ornaments he just bought laid out around the tree.

“Still think you won?” He bumps his shoulder playfully into Betty’s as she catalogs the random assortment of baubles he’s accumulated.

“Nope, Jones, I think this one’s all you,” she winks at him then goes for the ornament with the most glitter to hang on the tree. 

It takes about almost two hours to finish, every last inch of space covered by the most ridiculous assemblage of ornamentation ever seen. Quasi exhausted and slightly delirious, they finally indulge in some cookies and with JBs request for hot chocolate, both Betty and Jughead find themselves in the small galley kitchen.

He’s been touching her all night: a hand at the small of her back so she didn’t fall off the ladder, one wrapped around her waist as she stirred the milk on the stove, and she’s yet to shy away. He knows it’s playing with fire with her request to revisit next week but he can’t help it when his lips find the juncture between her neck and shoulder.

“You know what I find so odd?” Jughead jumps away from Betty’s blushing form as JB makes her way into the kitchen. “Neither of you, in all your crazy decorating, got any mistletoe.”

“Huh.” Betty looks back at him and follows his eyes to the ceiling. “Where did that come from then?”

“You’re welcome, idiots!” As quickly as she came, JB was gone again, skipping back down the hallway with a stolen snickerdoodle.

“We don’t have to...I know you want to…” Jughead’s hand nervously rubs at the base of his neck. 

“Fuck it,” he thinks he hears just moments before their lips meet. It starts slowly, unsure and tentative in this strange self-imposed limbo, but when Betty sighs against his lips all hesitations fly by the wayside. They break apart only when the milk boils over in an angry hiss. 

“Oops,” Betty giggles and he feels it, lips still pressed together. Quickly, she turns off the burner and cleans up the milk before it’s scorched onto his stovetop. She salvages enough to make three cups of cocoa that she and Jughead carry into the living room before settling on the couch. 

Jellybean stays on the floor, nestled between more blankets and pillows than Jughead even knew he owned. He takes one last, long look around the room, trying to commit every detail of the picturesque scene playing out before him to his memory. It’s been a wild month, and he knows that with JB starting school and probably staying with him permanently, it’s only going to get crazier. Betty leans her head on his chest as the TV comes to life, “It’s a Wonderful Life” playing on the screen. For the first time, surrounded by the people he loves, he thinks that it just may be. 


End file.
